Biography

Sevasti-Melissa Nolas joined the University of Sussex in 2011. Her research lies at the intersection of critical social psychology and chidhood and youth studies. As a social psychologist, she has a long-standing interest in the processes of engaging in personal and social change and the support systems and practices that enable or inhibit such engagements, and her research has focused on childhood and youth policies and programmes aimed at improving children's lives. She is an experienced evaluator of such programmes focusing specifically on how children’s participation is enacted therein and she has used ethnographic, visual and creative methods to get close to children's lived experiences and everyday lives. Her current research programme builds on these earlier themes and interests by focusing on publics formations and collective action in global cities as these relate to childhood, youth and family life. In 2014 she was awarded a European Resarch Council Starting Grant for a cross-national and qualitative longitudinal study on children’s participation in public life and the emergence of an orientation towards social action in childhood. You can read about the Connnectors Study here.

Role

Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Principal Investigator of ERC funded Connectors Study.